


Variables of Friendship and Enmity

by doctormissy



Category: Doctor Who (1963)
Genre: Gen, Humor, I'm Bad At Summaries, Sandwiches, Teleportation, UNIT
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-10
Updated: 2016-07-10
Packaged: 2018-07-22 18:38:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7449886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctormissy/pseuds/doctormissy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor is in his lab, when suddenly there's a light streak and the Master appears in there, while he should be locked up in prison.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Variables of Friendship and Enmity

**Author's Note:**

> Don't expect much of this, it's basically piece of nothing. I wrote it cos I was bored and I love Three and Delgado!Master. There's not even anything going on between them.

The Doctor was having a break. He was sitting on a swivel chair in his laboratory and eating the third of six delicious cheese sandwiches that his young blonde friend Jo Grant made for lunch. It was another cloudy and rainy day in Britain, and neither the Doctor nor Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart were in a mood to go outside and wander through London searching for hostile extraterrestrial activity, which in fact was currently at zero measure. There weren’t even indications of danger that needed to be dealt with urgently. The Master was locked up in prison on an island and his TARDIS was operational again, since the Time Lords pardoned him and gave him a brand new Dematerialisation Circuit. He thought that this was one of not many days here on Earth when nothing happened and he could enjoy his first meal of the day and a bottle of vintage wine at rest and peace, but he was wrong.

Jo Grant entered the room, intending to ask the Doctor whether he wanted more sandwiches and some tea. She was wearing her usual warm-hearted smile on her face and another utterly ridiculous, colourful mass of an outfit. The Doctor found out she was in the room only by a sound of her heeled boots. He looked up from a notebook covered with some Gallifreyan math written by him and returned the smile. 

“Is everything alright, Doctor? Do you want something?” she asked walking toward his chair. “The Brigadier sent me here to ask you about the calculations for that computer, but as I can see you haven’t finished it yet, so never mind him. To be honest, I don’t understand a word about it.” Jo stood beside the Doctor and peeped into his notes, twisting her head in inapprehension. 

“Of course you don’t, it’s written in Gallifreyan, a language of my people,” he replied to her admission as he finished biting the last bite of the third toast. He didn’t like to explain anything regarding the planet of his origin or advanced-science related to humans, however sharp and clever they might have been, as Jo Grant here for example. She was an exception; the most of the mankind were slightly idiotic and could not understand half of what he said.

The Doctor took a fourth sandwich and Jo gave him a chuckle. She had to carry the plate away before he eats them all, because otherwise there won’t be nothing left for her. Yes, she could make more and she was about to, but she was hungry _now_.

“Alright. I’ll make more. I’m back in a minute,” said his assistant and walked out of the room to the kitchen to prepare another batch of sandwiches and some tea or coffee for sure. She was considering that she would make cucumber sandwiches, which the Doctor hated, so they would be available to everyone else in need of a snack, but then she rejected the idea, thinking that that would be spiteful and highly unprofessional. 

As Jo left the room, the Doctor was alone again. He hasn’t made any progress with the calculations lately, thus he closed the notebook, giving up. He turned to the windows, observing the raindrops falling from the clouds above and dropping on the ground. The sound they made when they touched the earth was rather calming and the Doctor would almost drowse away. 

Five minutes had passed, when the Doctor noticed a strange flash of a white light behind his closed eyelids. He opened his eyes instantly, searching for the source of the sudden light. His eyes flickered from one corner of the lab to another, but however much he tried to find something unusual, everything seemed to remain intact. That was strange.

He got up from his chair and went to examine all of the alien objects congesting a cabinet at the back of the room. The Doctor slowly and carefully opened it in expectation of one of the objects letting out a toxic substance, sending a distress signal or, god help it, launching a defence mechanism capable of knocking a Time Lord unconscious, but the only thing he sees is a pile of inert devices kicking about in the cupboard’s shelves. 

What was the light then?

Suddenly, the white light appeared again. But this time it did not just flash and disappear again, yet lingered for little longer and brought a figure with it. It was a teleport of sorts. Transmat, perhaps. The Doctor stared into the beam, trying hard to recognise the person materialising inside it.

It certainly was a man, smaller than the Doctor, thin, dressed in dark clothes. First, he was vague, but after few seconds the man appeared to be fully reified in the laboratory. The Doctor had a sinister thought – which alas proved to be true. It was no one else then the other Time Lord present on Earth, the Doctor’s nemesis, the Master. 

“What are you doing here and how did you manage to construct a transmat and escape your prison, Master?” the Doctor asked, sceptical and stand-offish. He did not move a metre from the place in front of the cabinet he was standing at.

"Hello, my dear Doctor. I assure you that how I escaped is none of your concern. However, what is to come now certainly is, for you are going to help me find my TARDIS and get off this miserable planet once and for all,” the Master uttered, with that arrogant and wannabe fancy tone in his voice. He could not be serious, could he? His face was absolutely solemn though and the way he announced the statement indicated the Master meant what he said.

Still, “I beg your pardon?” the Doctor raised his eyebrow and put his hands into the pockets of his black trousers. “You truly expect I am going to help you after all you have done to me and the inhabitants of hundred planets including Earth?” The Doctor chuckled, realising the ridiculousness of the entire situation. 

The Master pulled out his TCE and pointed it at the Doctor. “Yes, I do, and I possess by means to make you.” 

In that moment, Jo has returned to the lab, carrying a plate of freshly made cheese sandwiches in one hand and a tea service in the other dexterously as if she were a waitress. She froze at the threshold when she saw the Master with his back turned to her and quickly tried to back out before she is noticed. Yet, the Master has heard her approach and there was no way back now. She was in danger by the Master and the Doctor hated himself for putting her in such situation in the first place. He completely forgot the young lady was in the building as well. And so were the Brigadier and the rest of UNIT personnel. 

The Master turned round and walked to Jo who was frightened by him slowly, aiming the TCE at her. It was a wonder she did not drop the plates, that concentrated she still was. 

That was an opportunity for the Doctor to step in. Once he was free of the Master’s attention, he quickly ran to his nemesis and hit him under the neck with the back of his palm, pacifying him. Not even a Time Lord could resist that Venusian karate strike he used.

He risked that the Master was going to shoot and shrink Jo or some of the equipment round him as he fell, but luckily he was quick enough to preserve the moment of surprise and make the Master fall unconscious before he could react and pull the trigger. 

The Master lay on the floor in a rather twisted position. Jo finally brought herself to put the plates on a nearest table and then ran to the Doctor, who knelt beside the Master and put handcuffs round his enemy’s wrists. “Are you alright, Doctor?” she asked, but it should have been the Doctor to ask her so and not the other way round.

“Of course, Jo, why wouldn’t I be?” he looked his companion in the eye. _Don’t ask silly questions,_ he wanted to add, nevertheless didn’t. The Doctor stood up and started rubbing the back of his neck with his hand, wondering what to do with the Master lying on the floor. “The question is: what do we do now? We cannot just leave him here like this.”

“Leave who here like this—” Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart said, questioning the Doctor from somewhere in the hallway. He apparently overheard the Doctor and Jo talking. He came to a halt as he went past the open door to the lab and saw the man in the Nehru suit on the floor, putting one and one together. “Oh. How on earth did he get here?! For as far as can I remember he was locked up in gaol!”

“Um, what can I say, old chap, you probably should pay the guards more so they do a better job,” the Doctor replied, deadpan. He smiled and went to the other side of the room to fetch a chair for the unconscious Master to sit in before they put him in a car and ride him to the harbour. “And, what’s the most important, keep him away from any devices but furniture. You never know when is he going to dismantle a refrigerator to build himself a deadly weapon.” The Doctor did not add the Master already did so, only it was not a deadly weapon, but a means of escape.

The Doctor placed the chair next to where the Master lay and bent down to lift the Time Lord up in it. He was quite heavy, but the Doctor had enough strength to seat him, as he was of the same origin. Time Lords have more strength and power than humans and always have. 

Once the Master was seated and seemingly asleep, the Doctor checked his vitals and left him be. He didn’t understand why, but he somewhat still cared about his former best friend’s well-being, even after all they have been through. 

They were going to take him back where he belongs – an isolated prison – and make sure he wasn’t going to perform such actions anymore later. The Doctor was glad it all went so easily without further complications.

Now, they were all going to sit down for a while, enjoy a sandwich and afternoon tea and laugh at the absurdity of what had happened. This certainly was one of the craziest alien assaults UNIT had come across, disregarding the Doctor himself.


End file.
